Nor am I interested in having political policy debates, or any other political debates, on the internet – any comments along these lines will be ignored at best and deleted at worst.
I notice that I might have written that sentence myself, but also:
Solution 3: Ending corporate subsidy
One of the meatiest things I can think of to talk about here is “okay how do you actually do this tho?”. I think being able to talk clearly about that is pretty important, and I think if done sufficiently abstractly doesn’t trigger any of my worries about mindkillingness. I’m currently interpreting this to mean “talking about this through and economic lens, and maybe abstracted political lens, but don’t bring up any current politicians or parties or whatnot.”
(Maybe using examples from 20+ years ago if you need illustrative examples)
I’m currently interpreting this to mean “talking about this through and economic lens, and maybe abstracted political lens, but don’t bring up any current politicians or parties or whatnot.”
The main way I personally think about how-to-achieve-political-goals while avoiding mindkill is to always structure the question as “what could a small well-funded team do?”.
Usually, political discussions of policy say something like “if we passed a law saying X, then Y would happen”. The problem with that formulation is the word “we”—it immediately and automatically makes this a group-identity thing. If only “we” all behaved like <ingroup>, “we” would pass law X, and everything would be better!
Thinking about what a small well-funded team can do forces several better habits:
it forces thinking about the underlying gears of the whole system, in order to achieve maximum leverage
it forces thinking about realistic, minimal (i.e. “keyhole”) interventions
it mostly eliminates excuses to say “yay/boo <group>”; particular political groups just become gears in the model
Good-governance advocates in the EU succeeded at reducing the ability of individual cities or countries giving subsidies to get investors. The process is more burocratic then desireable, but it’s a huge improvement over the status quo from before and also from what happens in the US.
It’s also part of the Washington Conensus and countries that take IWF money often has to agree to pay less subsidies.
Domestically in the US, states rights are an argument that likely prevents and politician from the left from pushing through similar limits as we have in the EU.
A debate about a recent search for a location where a new headquarter can be build however suggests to me that it will be difficult to get majorities for a reduction in corporate subsidies as it’s not something that people consider to be important.
I notice that I might have written that sentence myself, but also:
One of the meatiest things I can think of to talk about here is “okay how do you actually do this tho?”. I think being able to talk clearly about that is pretty important, and I think if done sufficiently abstractly doesn’t trigger any of my worries about mindkillingness. I’m currently interpreting this to mean “talking about this through and economic lens, and maybe abstracted political lens, but don’t bring up any current politicians or parties or whatnot.”
(Maybe using examples from 20+ years ago if you need illustrative examples)
The main way I personally think about how-to-achieve-political-goals while avoiding mindkill is to always structure the question as “what could a small well-funded team do?”.
Usually, political discussions of policy say something like “if we passed a law saying X, then Y would happen”. The problem with that formulation is the word “we”—it immediately and automatically makes this a group-identity thing. If only “we” all behaved like <ingroup>, “we” would pass law X, and everything would be better!
Thinking about what a small well-funded team can do forces several better habits:
it forces thinking about the underlying gears of the whole system, in order to achieve maximum leverage
it forces thinking about realistic, minimal (i.e. “keyhole”) interventions
it mostly eliminates excuses to say “yay/boo <group>”; particular political groups just become gears in the model
Good-governance advocates in the EU succeeded at reducing the ability of individual cities or countries giving subsidies to get investors. The process is more burocratic then desireable, but it’s a huge improvement over the status quo from before and also from what happens in the US.
It’s also part of the Washington Conensus and countries that take IWF money often has to agree to pay less subsidies.
Domestically in the US, states rights are an argument that likely prevents and politician from the left from pushing through similar limits as we have in the EU.
A debate about a recent search for a location where a new headquarter can be build however suggests to me that it will be difficult to get majorities for a reduction in corporate subsidies as it’s not something that people consider to be important.